Target will meet on Tuesday next week and on May 13th beToday was an interesting and productive day! We grouped up with part of Mrs. Burnett's class for part of the day, which worked well for the kids and what we needed to accomplish today.

We are nearing the end of Level I for Hands-On-Equations. The kids have really improved their algebraic thinking skills this year! We'll have one more lesson to finish next week, so the kids should be right on track for next year in Level II.

Next, we continued our Focus Study by creating our scrolls. Most groups have finished their scrolls, so we'll share them in class next week. This has been a big challenge in divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and making relationships and connections.

We squeezed in some logical thinking and also some vocabulary work with Weighty Word. Our new words are misdemeanor, nonconformist, and ostracize.

Finally, we finished our novel study! It was a great ending! Next week we'll be watching the rest of the movie that goes with the book. The kids may bring in a small snack to eat or share--something that connects with the book. Remember to bring in anything needed to eat or serve your snack as well. (Hint-Cake doesn't go with the book!)

Today was filled with research and poetry! I know it sounds like an unusual combination, but it worked today!

We started the morning exercising our evaluative thinking skills as we researched The Book of the Dead to decide what to write on our scrolls. Then, groups found hieroglyphics to use for the translation. Some groups even got to a rough draft of the message for the scroll. Next week, we'll transfer the message into hieroglyphics and then put it onto the scrolls.

Following this, we worked on some poetry. The kids each chose or wrote a poem, of at least 8 lines. They copied the poem and mounted it for display. Next week, they will recite or read the poem to the class. The following week, the kids will work with our Media Specialist, Mrs. Kindschy, to record their poem. There will be some exciting news about our finished poetry projects next week.

The poetry fun continued as Mrs. Kindschy taught us how to use an app called, Tellagami. The kids created "Book Spine" poems and recorded themselves reading the poems. Ask your child about it. It's fun and pretty easy to do!

Finally, we stretched our logical thinking skills with a puzzle and honed our algebraic thinking skills with some Hands On Equations. It was good to fit in some of that type of thinking amidst all the divergent, creative work of the morning.

We worked through our rotations today, so we could make the all important, "papyrus" for our scrolls. The kids had a great time tearing paper into small bits, stuffing it in the blender, adding water, blending, and then pouring the paper pulp onto screens stretched over shallow tubs. The comments about the paper pulp were: "It's soft!" , "It feels like cotton!", and "Wow, it doesn't stick to my fingers!". Pretty interesting stuff!

The kids researched the Book of the Dead to prepare for writing the secret message for next week. They may be doing more research for homework, just to make sure they know what they need to write on the scroll.

During the other rotations, the kids worked on divergent thinking with creative problem solving activities, convergent thinking with logic puzzles, and algebraic thinking with cryptograms and Hands On Equations.

Finally, we finished chapter 9 in our novel. The kids are SO excited that the mystery has been solved! We only have one chapter left, YIPPEE!!! Look for news about a fun culminating activity in the coming weeks.